Here you can see the difference in the two images. The orginal photo on the left has less contrast than the new photo on the right.

I didn’t mess with the opacity for this particular image. I rather liked where this ended up, and it should serve as a good base to build the rest of the edit over.

MERGE LAYERS

Next we’ll merge the two layers together so we can continue with our edit. If you don’t merge the two images, any edit that we do will only effect that particular player that’s selected.

To do that:

🕹 Select the two layers by CLICKING ONE LAYER – HOLD DOWN CTRL – THEN CLICK THE SECOND LAYER

🕹 Then RIGHT CLICK on one of the layers, and scroll down to MERGE LAYERS

LEVELS

Now it’s time to start fine-tuning the image by adjusting the SHADOWS, MIDTONES, and HIGHLIGHTS.

To do this we’ll use the LEVELS TOOL.

🕹 IMAGE – ADJUSTMENTS – LEVELS

The LEVELS TOOLS is simple to use once you understand what you’re looking at.

The small tab to the far left adjusts the darkest point in your image: THE SHADOWS

The small tab in the middle is used to adjust the MIDTONES in your image

The small tab to the far right adjusts the brightest points in your image: THE HIGHTLIGHTS

Just beneath those controls is the OUTPUT LEVEL.

The small tab to the left adjusts how dark or light the black parts of your image will be in your edit

The small tab to the right adjusts how soft or bright the white parts of your image will be in yout edit

Play around with any or all of these to get the desired look you’re after.

For this edit, I pulled my SHADOWS TOWARDS THE RIGHT to make them darker.

Then I pulled my HIGHLIGHTS TOWARDS THE LEFT to make them brighter.

FINAL TOUCH

From here I like to use this AMAZING software called Alienskin Exposure X.

It has tons of old film looks that photographers used back in the day.

The only “bad thing” about the software is that it’s so awesome that it’s sometimes hard to choose what PRESET you want to use. The looks are absolutely stunning and will definitely take your work up another level.

Once you finally choose the preset you’d like to use from the box on the left, the tabs on the right allow you to fully adjust and customize the final look you’re going after. It has many of the same tools used in Photoshop, so the learning curve is relatively simple and an absolute delight once you learn them.

Below you’ll see the final edit after adding the Alienskin Exposure X Preset and adjustments, and I posted the progression of the entire edit from start to finish.

Exposure 7 has an attached price tag of only $149.

It may sound pricey to some people, but for others, they realize that the added production value of their work will quickly put that $149 plus a lot more back into their pockets in no time.

If it still sounds too rich for your blood, no worries. They have an awesome 30 day trial which gives you FULL access to the software.

So my suggestion would be to give it a shot, and see for yourself if it’s worth it or not.